FF – Welcome to the 21st Century
Here is my story for Friday Fictioneers, hosted by Rochelle. This week’s photo was contributed by Roger Bultot.
Copyright Roger Bultot
All was quiet in the museum, scarcely visited, going bust… until the skylight exploded and soldiers roped down, firing weapons, dropping flash-bangs.
Faster than Emergency Responders came a new wave of visitors, gawking at the carnage, taking photos, shooting videos, instantly uploaded, a million ‘likes’ an hour.
Now it’s a permanent exhibit, the bodies left where they fell, grieving families paid off. The sole survivor (now on staff) recites the words spoken by soldiers, to the delight of the crowd.
“This isn’t the Muzbekistan Embassy. Dammit, all those skylights look the same from a chopper…”
Welcome to the 21st Century.
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Friday Fictioneers
draliman on life 
Anyone could make the same mistake!
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It’s easily done!
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Ha, love it, in a dark innocents slaughtered kinda way.
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There was a bit of a body count!
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Shoot now, ask questions later! Capitalism at its best 🙂
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You’ve gotta take chance in today’s dog shoot dog world 🙂
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Ooh, that was a rollercoaster of a read! Nice one.
Susan A Eames at
Travel, Fiction and Photos
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Thanks, I’m glad you liked it!
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it sounds like a 21st century spin covering up a deadly mistake. 🙂
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Gotta makes lemonade out of those lemons 🙂
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Hi. Bombs away! That’s what our species is good at.
Neil S.
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Sadly yes.
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I want a selfie with one of the victims!!!!!
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Buster’s crumpled in a corner, how does that suit?
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Eh, I think just about everyone’s gotten a selfie with dead Buster already….
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True, he’s proved quite popular across the years…
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Ha ha ha. I hope they’d bought tickets to get into the Muzbekistan embassy.
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Might be safer for everyone than jumping through the skylight.
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Instant upload, trending and going viral is what happens in this age. Glad that museum now has visitors, thanks to smart phone and photo upload. Other scary part may be some other group may mistake the dome for Mujbekistan embassy, jump in and fire. But business will be good, that is the positive side.
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If another group makes the same terrible mistake I’m sure the museum will be glad of the fresh corpses for their “exhibit”…
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A sobering story of shoot first, then a sad commentary on the response. Well-written tale!
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Thanks, I’m glad you enjoyed my little dig at the modern age 🙂
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The worst part? This is entirely plausible!!!
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Yep 😦
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Hmm! Food for thought. Well told, Ali.
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Thanks, I’m glad you enjoyed it!
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At least they are making the best of it, tourists just need a plausible reason to visit, even if it’s a blundering shame.
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The museum has made lemonade out of their lemons, for sure. Love the phrase “blundering shame”!
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I wonder how many “Thoughts and prayers” it’ll take to make it right?
Great story man, unfortunately for us it’s how life is now.
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Yes, everything has become so sensationalist and the worse the better. I’m glad you liked it!
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Oh, that comment by the tour guide! I can almost see him shrugging one shoulder.
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He certainly came out of the whole tragedy on his feet!
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Dear Ali,
Dale took the words right from under my fingers. Grisly and plausible. Well done…in a dark kind of way.
Shalom,
Rochelle
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Dear Rochelle,
Yes, I shudder at how close we are to this sort of thing.
I’m glad you liked it!
Ali
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This is something that probably wouldn’t have occurred to you write a few years ago, but nowadays it seems like something that could happen all too easily.
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Sadly very true. The sorry state of the world is a goldmine for we flash fictioneers.
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Sad that such a tale could ring so true. “Grieving families paid off.” Horrible.
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I don’t think such a terrible tale is so far off 😦
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You and I had the same basic idea for the prompt. Out endings differ. I really like the corpses becoming part of an exhibit. Sounds like a place for the elite snobs.
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Ha, yes, we both saw the skylight smashing as troops rappelled in!
The elite snobs do need something shocking to keep them from getting bored counting all their money.
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Plenty packed in. Great job!
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Thanks, I’m glad you liked it!
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A simple mistake. It could have happened to anyone.
Had the place been crowded, there would’ve been even more carnage to gawk at.
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Every cloud, and all that!
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After a few days of bodies lying around, there could be a problem. This reminds me of a scene from a James Bond movie. They never seem to clean up the bodies either. 😀 — Suzanne
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I did wonder about the decomposition issue! Nobody ever cleans up the bodies in films.
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What a twist. At least the survivor was taken care of 🙂
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Ha, there is that 🙂
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Disasters happening to other people always seem to end up as entertainment for tourists (myself included). A sad commentary on human nature.
The only part of the story that’s not believable is the bodies left where they fell. They need to be replaced with wax figures before the smell gets out of hand.
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There’s a difference between a memorial of a past tragedy and this museum’s sensationalist take on it.
Ah, but the bodies are carefully preserved in stasis fields, which will be a thing when my story takes place, ahem 🙂
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Good point, but there’s a fine line sometimes.
Stasis fields… of course! Why didn’t I think of that? Flying cars too, right? 😉
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Oops! Bit worried though. How are they preserving those bodies?
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High-tech stasis fields, which I’m sure we’ll be inventing soon! Either that or all visitors get nose plugs.
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Oops…I guess 😀 Extra Pawkiss 🙂 ❤
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A small error in judgement 🙂
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Wow, very creepy,imagining the “exhibit”. Good description.
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Thanks, it does make one shudder to imagine it.
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